OUTTHINKER - Key Persons
Alejandro Kupferschmied founded, operated and sold a media corporation that specializes in BTL and traditional outdoor media in South America. He is the president of Media Factory in Costa Rica, a company that specializes in custom-made computer terminals. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Bentley University.
Job Titles:
- CEO of the Storied American
Amir Amir is a former management consultant with McKinsey & Company (from 2000 until 2005) where he specialized in advising companies on product development and innovation and served as the project manager of McKinsey's effort to develop a reference guide on innovation in the consumer packaged goods industry. Since 2006, Amir has served clients as a management consultant, a management instructor, and worked as an interim CEO helping companies innovate and drive growth.
Amir has served as the CEO of the storied American personal care company Caswell-Massey from 2007 until 2011. In addition, he served as the CEO of high-end fashion house Luca Luca from 2008 until 2013.
He has authored or co-authored two books, three book chapters, 16 articles for the Encyclopædia Britannica, and six academic papers. His first book was published before he graduated from high school.
Amir holds a Bachelor's (1993), Master's (1995), and an Engineer (1998) degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering. While he was a graduate student, MIT awarded him a prestigious teaching fellowship.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Brad Giles is a serial entrepreneur having started and grown five businesses in several different industries as well as being a strategic adviser to mid-market companies within his firm Evolution Partners. He is a certified Gazelles coach and regularly facilitates strategy workshops for management teams across Australia.
Because of his experience developing businesses from start-ups to medium-sized operations, Brad deeply and practically understands the perspective of leaders and delivers actionable results. Brad is past chapter president of the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) and is an organizer of TEDxPerth, one of the largest TEDx events in the southern hemisphere. Brad was an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist and a two-time BRW magazine Fast 100 two-time winner. He also completed the Entrepreneurial Masters Program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Job Titles:
- President
- President of Outthinker Strategy Networks
Claudio is President of Outthinker Strategy Networks, a global network of strategy executives from large organizations the are committed to staying ahead of the pace of change.
Before joining Outthinker, Claudio was Executive Vice Presidency for Strategy and Corporate Development at Lee Hecht Harrison, where he was responsible for the expansion and innovation of the company with operations in more than 60 countries. Prior to this role, he was LHH's President of Latin America where he helped solve critical business challenges and personally supported dozens of complex transformation projects for large client organizations. During his tenure leading strategy LHH, Claudio was a member of the Outthinker Strategy Network.
Claudio has experience across a variety of industries, including food and beverage, entertainment, and media and communications. In addition to his role at Outthinker, Claudio is a board member and teaches Global Management and International Human Resources Management at New York University's School of Professional Studies.
Job Titles:
- Director of Marketing & Member Experience
- Member Experience for the Outthinker Strategy Network
Cori Dombroski manages the member experience for the Outthinker Strategy Network. Her professional background includes leading Sales Enablement and Partner Marketing for IBM data & analytics services and producing course content for the Growth Institute's Scaling Up business courses.
Along the way, she has also been a teacher of language and literature and a lifelong student. Cori holds a Master's degree in Spanish, teaches yoga classes, and has traveled to 35 countries. She is passionate about education, storytelling, and connecting communities of inspired individuals.
David Greene advises industry, independent sector, and philanthropy c-suite executives on organization performance, talent management, corporate governance, social responsibility and diversity strategy.
He is a distinguished organizational development and performance improvement expert with more than 20 years of experience consulting organizations from different sectors, industries, and fields including Fortune firms, NGOs, universities and professional and trade associations.
As an award-winning strategic planner, distinguished facilitator and trainer, and executive and team coach, David is certified by several different governing bodies, including International Association of Facilitators, International Coach Federation, The Leadership Circle, Center for Applications of Psychological Type, and Institute for Personality and Ability Testing, among others, to lead large-scale engagements using these and practitioner tools.
David also regularly presents as a speaker and guest lecturer at professional association conferences and universities on strategy and leadership. He is an invited contributor to various publications such as Journal of EDM Finance, Diversity & the Bar, and Linked 2 Leadership, and he is a contributing author to Public Relations as a Branding Tool by Aspatore Books. He is a proud Stony Brook University alumnus..
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Member of the Prestigious Thinkers50 Radar Group
Dr. Kaihan Krippendorff is the founder of Outthinker, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant and author of five business strategy books, most recently Driving Innovation from Within. A sought-after keynote speaker, recognized expert and popular blogger on the topics of business strategy, innovation, growth, and transformation, Kaihan is helping a growing cadre of leading companies and corporations such as Microsoft, Oracle, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg's, TIAA-CREF and BNY Mellon prepare themselves to compete in a digital, agile, purpose-driven future.
Kaihan is a member of the prestigious Thinkers50 radar group - A global selection of the top 30 management thinkers in the world to follow. He was also shortlisted by Thinkers50 for a Distinguished Achievement Award in Innovation - awarded to the person in the world that has contributed the most to the world's understanding of innovation in the past two years. Kaihan is currently ranked the Thinkers360 #1 Global Innovation Thought Leader and the Thinkers360 #1 Global Business Strategy Thought Leader.
Amidst his dizzying schedule of keynote speeches, consulting projects, ongoing research and writing, Kaihan still finds time to teach at business schools throughout the US and internationally. Regularly featured in major business media outlets Kaihan is an advisory board member for a blockchain-powered transportation platform, an international food processing/exporting company, and a B-corporation focused on sustainable products and lifestyle.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Management & Technology Program, Kaihan has spent more than a decade studying the intersection of language, technology, and innovation to drive competitive advantage. He earned his BS in finance from Wharton Business School, BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, MBA from Columbia Business School, and Doctorate of Science in Economics from Abo Akademi.
Dr. Yvonne Sum uses an integrated and thought-provoking approach to help companies improve the health of their culture and the performance of the organization. Her work includes leadership development, coaching, and disruptive thinking to develop and implement innovative strategies. She works with Directors, CEOs, and senior management in high growth multinational corporations, family enterprises, and entrepreneurial start-ups to creat innovative solutions. She has worked across a variety of industries including aviation, luxury brands, IT, financial & professional services, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare among others. She helped the Group CEO of an international furniture manufacturer develop an innovation strategy run concurrently with leadership development and coaching programs that led to doubling annual export revenue, rapid geographic expansion, six new leaders emerging from their ranks, and simultaneous historic rises in employee engagement.
Yvonne graduated from the University of Sydney Australia with a Bachelor of Dental Surgery with Honors. She is a published author of several books and is on the global faculty of Melbourne Business School, Mobius Executive Leadership, and Investible - Australia's Business Generation Lab to co-create a unique entrepreneur education experience. She speaks conversational Cantonese, Malay, and Mandarin.
Job Titles:
- Founder and CEO of Affinity Strategies
Elizabeth Schumacher, JD, is a Certified Outthinker Growth Strategist based in Chicago, IL. She has more than 25 years of executive and entrepreneurial experience in the health care, pharmaceutical, academic and nonprofit sectors. Liz is the Founder and CEO of Affinity Strategies, a global health care nonprofit organization management firm. A lifelong patient advocate and three-time kidney transplant, Liz brings her professional and personal expertise to help health care organizations of all sizes grow in relevance, revenue and reputation. Liz is a frequent speaker with biotech, pharmaceutical and health care companies. Liz has served on the boards of United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), Georgetown Women in Business Council, National Kidney Foundation, and Ellevate Chicago. Liz earned her Bachelors, Law and LLM in Bioethics from the University of Wisconsin.
Isadora Tang works closely with top-level global executives across a wide range of Fortune 500 companies, both in leading innovation projects and building internal innovation capability, culture, and teams. She has industry experience in food and beverage, fashion, pharmaceuticals and e-commerce. As a Founder and Innovation Director for LumenLab, MetLife's innovation center based in Asia, she led teams of innovation strategists, technologists, and other experts to pilot new products and services in digital health and fintech. She led workshops on design thinking and built innovation capabilities in MetLife offices across Asia and the U.S. She began her consulting career at Boston Consulting Group and worked with WhatIf? Innovation.
Isadora has a BA from New York University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. She is conversant in Mandarin Chinese and speaks some Spanish.
Job Titles:
- Executive
- Business Strategist
Jeff Moore works with CEOs and executive teams to provide business development coaching and to produce businesses that continue to grow without requiring personal attention from the founders.
Jeff is a business strategist, serial entrepreneur, angel investor, puzzle thinker, and TEDx speaker. His background is in financial software, so he often helps his clients get clear on the financial aspects of their decisions or helps them improve their business processes. Jeff is certified by Gazelles International (Rockefeller Habits/Four Decisions for Business Growth), and Book Yourself Solid (Sales and Marketing).
Professor Jill Hellman is an innovation expert and highly sought-after advisor, leader, and keynote speaker. She specializes in helping individuals or groups of any kind rethink, reimagine, and grow.
Professor Hellman has stood on top of the world in Greenland and Iceland addressing tourism ministers and educators from the Nordic nations, taken the stage in Finland before President Obama took the stage at a connected event, addressed world leaders from the Mediterranean on the idyllic island nation of Malta, was one of the U.S. citizens invited to speak to the business community in the country of Bulgaria, fundraised for private equity globally, advised on a new, digital retail strategy in the Middle East for a company that owns and operates 150 retail locations, executed strategic initiatives at a $19 Billion retailer in the U.S., grew hospitality investments while in Asia, and served as the external advisor working with the global head of innovation at McKinsey & Co.
She has been a keynote speaker, advisor, facilitator, and trainer in more than 25 countries worldwide encompassing Western & Eastern Europe, the Nordic Region, the Middle East, Asia and North & South America.
She has also appeared in books, blogs, online media, and television news.
She holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.
Job Titles:
- President of the Bay Islands Trust Company
Joseph Miller is the president of the Bay Islands Trust Company and the founder of BIT Capital Management. He has been an active investor and entrepreneur in the Caribbean, the United States, and parts of Latin America for more than 20 years. Joseph is the president of the Caribbean American Club, an NGO established in 1962 by his grandfather in Tampa, Florida, and the chairman of the Bay Islands Heritage Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Product and Content Specialist
Karina Reyes has spent her career building her expertise in online executive education and product development. With a Bachelor of Arts in both Studio art and English Writing & Rhetoric from St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, she's transformed her creative background into viewing each process or product she's involved in with a multi-layered lens. With roles ranging from an operations manager, a newspaper editor, a literature teacher and a product manager, she's honed a passion and expertise in delivering quality products and creating streamlined processes in diverse environments.
Karina's other passion is foreign languages, having grown up bilingual with Spanish through her Guatemalan family, studied French extensively, and learned Portuguese as a fun addition. A year of managing an intercultural team through six countries in Latin America brought it all together. Books are treated as friends, and she's never been known to shy away from new learning opportunities or adventures.
Leigh Paulden consults with CEOs, senior manager teams, boards and business owners in New Zealand's top mid-market companies. In his role as facilitator and coach, he helps clients gain clarity and develop innovative strategies that drive business growth, build organization capabilities and achieve business excellence. His work has spanned over 140 companies in 30 different industries including accounting, commercial and residential construction, distribution, finance, logistics, education, retail, manufacturing, technology and professional service firms. In a representative project, he guided his client to conduct rigorous market research, clarify trends in their market segments and collaboratively interpret the data to determine implications for the future. Using the Outthinker process, he facilitated the exploration of opportunities that no one had seen yet or thought of. They came up with a powerful, disruptive strategy and after market testing, they formed a new company that grew to 20% of the parent company in the 15 months with expectations that it will grow at 100% per year over the next four years. Using a similar approach, he has helped several others clients radically disrupt their industries and accelerate their growth by 100%.
Prior to consulting, Leigh worked from the ground up with 16 years experience in senior management roles and nine years in general manager roles in national companies. Because his experience crosses numerous roles, departments, and industries, he brings a unique interdisciplinary perspective to clients, resulting in more creative strategies.
Leslie DaCruz leads many of Outthinker's key strategic client relationships. Leslie has more than 30 years of experience leading teams to breakthrough results in areas of general management, new business initiatives, game-changing strategy, and marketing. He has held senior executive positions at The Walt Disney Company, PepsiCo, Hasbro, Laureate Education, USC and Mars and Co. Leslie has built a career of stepping into new situations, quickly sizing up issues and opportunities, inventing new ways of doings thing, and then executing on them. As a result, he has launched numerous new ventures and built businesses, brought new products and services to market, and created/positioned brands in Fortune 100 companies; as well as worked with small companies and startups, in both for profit and non-profit sectors. As a senior executive with Disney, Leslie was hired at the inception of a new division where he was instrumental in creating a twenty-fold increase in revenues over a ten-year period, building retail revenue to more than $1 Billion per year. He has experience in consumer products and services, entertainment, and education.
Half of Leslie's career has been in Europe and Latin America. He is Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and proficient in French. He is a graduate of the Wharton School and University of Pennsylvania.
Job Titles:
- Certified Outthinker Growth Strategist
Luiza Zequi is a Certified Outthinker Growth Strategist based in Sao Paolo, Brazil. She has more than 20 years of executive experience across a range of industries, including services, holding companies, cosmetics, agribusiness. She has led large-scale, global transformation programs, people and talent strategies, innovation/ accelerator programs, organizational design, and M&A strategies in companies such as Du Pont, Bunge, Cargill, and Avon as well for diversified holding companies and start-ups.
Job Titles:
- Certified Scaling Up Coach
Roberto is an international Certified Scaling Up Coach, and provides business and leadership coaching and training to executive teams interested in producing outstanding financial results, while fostering a culture of engagement and alignment.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Sabrina Herrera is a part of the top team of Genomma Lab Internacional, S.A.B. De C.V., one of Mexico's fastest-growing publically traded companies. By leading Genomma Lab's international expansion, she helped the company exceed $400M in revenue in 2010 and open and run operations in 14 countries. Genomma Lab, S.A.B. De C.V. had a successful IPO in 2008 (ticker LAB.B).
Shannon Wallis leads curriculum design efforts, certification training, and plays a central role in new content development for Outthinker. She brings more than 20 years of experience in leadership program design, executive coaching, transformational change, and strategic planning. Shannon is the former global director of high-potential leadership development at Microsoft. In her role, she was the chief architect of an award-winning leadership program and responsible for the development of top-tier talent. She worked with multiple Fortune 100 businesses as diverse as Coca-Cola, Price Waterhouse, EMC, VMware, Federal Express, and Grameen Foundation. Widely sought in her field, Shannon has contributed to multiple books on leadership development and talent management. Shannon holds a Master of Business Administration with concentration in health services management from Duke University and a Bachelor of Science in human development and social policy from Northwestern University. She is certified in a variety of psychometric instruments including both the World Institute for Action Learning and Authenticity Consulting coaching methodologies.
Wes heads up the Outthinker Consultant Network with three focuses - developing our global community of practitioners, co-developing product, service and experience with Outthinker Consultant Network members, and co-developing Professional development and Certification processes with Kaihan and Shannon.
Wes brings 20+ years of experience in launching brands into new markets and building the teams required for those brands to become market leaders. Co-authoring Growth Strategies via innovative strategic partnerships born out of shared missions to lead the market in new and exciting ways.
Job Titles:
- Chief of Staff of the Outthinker Network
In addition to his responsibilities for the Outthinker Network, Zach manages the keynote speaking activities of Kaihan Krippendorff, one of the most in-demand speakers on strategy, innovation, growth, and transformation.
Before joining Outthinker, Zach worked for a medical technology company that designs tools to increase clinic efficiency in developing countries. Zach co-founded a startup company that has created a healthier and safer alternative to traditional tobacco products. His experience includes conducting and analyzing market research, project management, business and product development, social media, and marketing. Zach received his Bachelor's degree from Middlebury College.
Zachary Ness is the Chief of Staff of the Outthinker Network, a network of EVP, SVP, and C-level heads of strategy from Fortune 500 companies. Intimate physical and virtual events bring him together with leading experts in business management and executive leaders taking their organizations into the future. Since joining the Network in 2016, Zach has interviewed dozens of thought-leaders and executives to uncover practical steps and ways for organizations to drive transformation.